Evidently, no one cares

Jan 05, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
Your newspaper’s report of December 31, 2011, “Teen dies after botched abortion”, is a painful statement, nearly seventeen years after Guyana introduced one of the most liberal abortion laws in the region.
The teenager’s unfortunate and unnecessary death is a sad statement of the limits of even a very good law. But her death is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political leadership.
No Minister of Health has had the courage to confront the ugly stigma associated with abortion and take a firm stand for the implementation of the law.
There has been no public exercise to educate women about the law and to make abortion services readily available in public hospitals. There has been no investment in educating nurses or doctors on the law and its service requirements, including counselling. There has been no sustained campaign to increase knowledge of and access to contraception.
Women are therefore left to the unmonitored skills of private physicians. Some are excellent and some are not.
I extend my condolences to the young woman’s family and her children. Her death will leave a permanent hole in two families. This should never have happened. Yet her death is merely the tip of the iceberg.
The more pervasive threat of unsafe abortion is to women’s health. Many are left sub-fertile and face a wide range of other complications. These are unseen and ignored by the media. Death is the dramatic exception that captures headlines.
Bottom line: stigma remains triumphant. Without political courage the law is blunt and ineffective. And women remain vulnerable. Many will be harmed and a few will die. All of this is unnecessary.
But who cares? Evidently, no one.
Fred Nunes

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